While there has been a prominent influence of African musical idioms in Caribbean styles, Afro-Cuban and other Latin-American hybrids have also been very influential back across the ocean in Africa. Caribbean sounds began arriving in port cities along Africa's Atlantic Coast, including Dakar, Conakry, Cotonou, Kinshasa, and Luanda, long before the advent of recorded music. West Indian sailors, the descendants of enslaved Africans, brought their culture along with the cargo ships. And African musicians, recognizing elements of their own traditions in these new musical forms, re-absorbed this into the formation of new popular forms: highlife, etc. Later, the arrival of Cuban records, starting in the 1930s, further fueled the creation of new hybrids. And from the 1960s-'90s, Cuban military presence, first in Zaïre, and later in Angola provided further inspiration to African artists. On this week's show, we'll listen to diverse examples of Afro-Cuban musical expression in Senegal, Guinea, Benin, Congo, and Angola. /// host: Andy Hosch